-Joe has an excellent tip about using affiliate links when doing email marketing like TidBITS

-Based on a listener’s feedback in our Slack channel, Sam recommends SetApp, a subscription service for Mac apps

-Turning on mark down support in secure notes is now a feature of 1Password. Thanks to Joe’s feedback/rant online? Who knows.

-Jerry struggled on-site at a client with an odd Gmail issue with Apple Mail and as it turns out, it was the Keychain.

-One of Joe’s client has an issue where their iCloud outgoing emails are going to spam for recipients. He utilized a blacklist tool to see if their IP or domain was on any blacklists. After working hard to diagnose, it turned out to be the fact that the user was using their ISP’s mail server to send messages.

-FileVault encryption proved to be more difficult for Jerry and it required running Disk Utility from the Recovery partition

-One of Joe’s clients was trying a remote session and found MacHelp Mate!

-Sam addresses the rumors about how he spends his CCP per diem and where he sleeps at night

-Weldon gives us the scoop about his business and how it involves MSP clients as well as an Apple Authorized Training Partner

-Weldon begins a conversation about how to onboard new employees and the team shares their thoughts

-One of the methods that Sam used was to have the new hire document your steps so he/she learns how to create documentation and you get to critique the way they create notes

-Joe has a client that he respects that gave him good unsolicited feedback on his new hire. She became a barometer and may be a future method for vetting potential new employees

-Weldon compares that to a situation where he was brought on board to help vet a new educator being brought into his son’s school

-Sam has a bone to pick with Joe about a new client referral that he cannot shake

-On the topic of referrals, Weldon talks about his good business relationship with Amy McKnight and the team at The Mac Spa

-Joe asks Weldon about his decision to go all in on MSP and how difficult it was at times to say no to potential business

-After heavy experience with companies like Microsoft and Cisco, Weldon realized he was the only one on his team that could handle certain tasks. So it made him sharpen his focus on things that he and his entire team could be awesome at.

-A big congratulations to Weldon for his successful presentation with Randy Saeks at JNUC 2018!

-ACEs Conference is back for 2019! It will be held in Kansas City, MO June 4-6. Visit http://acesconf.com/ccp/ for special pricing for CCP listeners.

Topics:

This show is brought to you commercial free, thanks to our Patreon sponsors.

On this episode we welcome long time supporter of the show and owner of Watchman Monitoring, Allen Hancock

-Some news for Allen and the team is that they have hired Ben Mason. You may know Ben from his excellent support at Gruntwork.

-Hiring new staff and remote vs local employees becomes an interesting topic of discussion

-Allen has a big announcement in that they are changing the way they handle Zendesk Tickets. Listen to find out more about Zendesk private ticket creation and how Watchman Monitoring takes full advantage of this.

-Watchman Monitoring can also work with Zendesk’s Essential Plan

-Zendesk Private Ticket creation is the new feature that allowed this integration to happen

-The Watchman Monitoring community forum has been recently revamped. You will no longer receive emails from the forum unless you request to watch a topic or receive responses to your posts. You can also vote on features.

-Jerry references MacBreak Weekly, where they mention an app called Focos, which uses computational photography to perform amazing edits on your photos

-Jerry wants the new phone for “George Clooney selfie mode”

-Joe has a client with a new domain that ends in .photography, which caused all sorts of issues as many apps don’t understand that it is a URL. His work entailed adding the domain to Google Search Console, along with adding variants, selecting defaults, and adjusting country/language settings. Here are Squarespace recommendations:https://support.squarespace.com/hc/en-us/articles/205814568

-Joe shares a problem and solution for an issue in Mail app when composing a new email

-Joe introduces yet another new segment: Joe's Corner Down by the River. Note that when removing ~/Library/Mail/V5/MailData/Envelope Index, Envelope Index-shm, Envelope Index-wal, ExternalUpdates.storedata, ExternalUpdates.storedata-shm, ExternalUpdates.storedata-wal, when rebuilding mail database, messages for IMAP accounts are re-downloaded from the server! Eats up limited cellular bandwidth.

Special Thanks To Our VIP Sponsors!

Topics:

-How do you save clients from themselves

-Jerry moves a conversation to Zendesk to have a paper trail to “CYA”

-Follow up on Joe’s gripe due to Face ID not having a “try again” feature. Michael Thomsen of Origin 84 made us aware that tilting the phone away from you and back will allow another attempt. iOS 12 has since addressed this issue.

-After a recent to the Apple Store for a screen repair, Joe receives paperwork about “Pontiac data loss”

-Joe contemplates the new iPhone Xs Max

-While at the Apple Store, seeing the new watches was tempting, although the latest pricing could be a deal breaker. Jerry finds a deal on eBay.

-Joe encounters malware that was previously undetected by Watchman but cleaned by Malwarebytes

Topics:

This week we welcome Adam Codega of Stenhouse Consulting. Adam is well known in the Apple community and is very active on Slack to work with his fellow consultants. So it was fitting for him to join us on Command Control Power.

A little bit about Adam:He has been in IT since 2011 and a full time admin since 2014. He works with Rhode Island consulting firm, Stenhouse Consulting with a team of roughly 14 technicians.

-Stenhouse technicians have various areas of expertise and about half are Apple focused

-They also have a good relationship with the Apple Retail, which has proven to be a useful resource for them.

-Adam talks about the activation issues with Office 365

-Testing and deploying new technology is not something Adam shies away from so the group discusses how to approach that with clients

-He discusses the nuances of having to sell a solution to a client at times before being able to test

-Backing up Synology NAS devices become a topic of conversation

-Backblaze B2 astonishingly has no method of alert if containers become out of sync

-A second Synology with shared folder sync can become another file server at the ready. It can serve as a dual purpose Hyperbackup destination at the same time.

Topics:

-Joe talks Apple Watch

-Joe introduces two new segments:

-“What I learned at the Apple Store”Joe learned how to check his iTunes gift card balance

-”What I learned from the client”The keyboard shortcut of Command+Backslash auto populates credentials from 1PasswordSam is blown away by this, yet Jerry has been doing this for years. It prompts Sam to quickly come up with a new segment of his own: “What I learned on Command Control Power”.

-Joe has a rant about 1Password 7 and offering markdown support, which inadvertently had a detrimental affect on his Secure Notes within 1Password.

-Wearing his tin foil hat, Joe talks about entering computer passwords and other potential data while on public networks or on camera that could already be compromised.

-Continuing the security topics, the gang talks about directory bound account passwords in large organizations that are set to Welcome1.

-Joe has a bone to pick with Microsoft Exchange due to another missing feature that exists elsewhere. It seems to be missing multiple alerts in calendar events!

-Sam gets frustrated about a freebie he offered to a client that turned into a much longer visit than expected

Topics:

This week we are very excited to welcome Dr. Howard Oakley of The Eclectic Light Company blog. Howard describes himself as a Former MacUser writer, RN doctor, survival medicine specialist; now blogger and painter.

-Howard has a long history with the Mac community

-When Mac User folded, Howard had a lot of completed writings and decided to start Eclectic Light Company to explore all things Mac, art, and life in general.

-Each day, Howard tries to publish at least one article about Mac and works to talk about topics that aren't well documented. He also likes to publish articles predominantly about art history.

-Joe makes a personal request for a deep dive on /var/folders as it has been a continual topic for us on the show

-Howard notes that Apple used to be exemplary in its documentation for technicians. When Sierra was released and Console was completely re-written, it inspired him to write an app to help review the data. Thus, Consolation was born and now he has a whole stable of apps for macOS: https://eclecticlight.co/downloads/

-The play on words is something that reminds Joe about when he is using "Console" or "Terminal" in front of a client

-Dr. Oakley spends some time discussing the current state of logs and changes in recent operating systems

-Jerry wonders about Howard's motivation for the creation of the vast amount of tools he has made available. Howard notes that apps like this don't make money so that is not his motivation but rather giving back to the community.

-As Dr. Oakley discusses the current state of affairs, he talks about the fact that although Apple doesn't need Mac to pay its bills, there is still so much to offer including a superb development platform for iOS.

Topics:

-Brandon Walter, a relatively new listener to the show (thanks Ty Romstadt!), provides a couple of tips, including an alternative adhesive kit for the 21.5" and 27" iMacs:https://www.ebay.com/itm/202357271099

-Brandon also mentions a great vCard export option within the Contacts app

-Jerry mentions an excellent tip he heard on Mac Geek Gab, which is to open a desktop version of a website on a mobile device (think iCloud.com on an iPhone/iPad)

-Joe's disappointing 15" MacBook Pro story continues as he finds he cannot have the battery replaced at the Apple Store. Jerry suggests a "Mac Drop".

-We have the pleasure of welcoming Jeff Porten, author of Take Control of your Productivity, available from Take Control Books -Jeff Porten has 25 years of experience as an independent consultant to small businesses and nonprofits, concentrating on information technologies, business planning, and personal and organizational workflow management.

Being productive is never as simple as putting items on a calendar or to do list and checking them off. Most of us struggle with too much to do, too little time, and only a vague idea of how to plan each day so we can achieve the best results with the least stress. If that sounds like you (and especially if you’ve tried a bunch of productivity systems and found them lacking), Jeff Porten’s expert guidance may be just what you need.

Topics:

-In a rarity, Joe and Sam are recording without Jerry

-Joe is in the state of Washington and they discuss the possibility of meeting up on the west coast

-With all of the security features and changes with new hardware, the guys discuss the need to get your hands on current hardware to make sure you as a consultant are familiar with changes in behavior.

-Sam has a saga to share about issues related to his own computer. He spins a yarn to take listeners through every gory detail, including:

Reinstall from recovery

Using dscl to create users

Recreating/deleting .AppleSetupDone

Choosing Spanish as the language

Recreating the user account

Changed UID back to 501

Deleted /var/folders/zz

-Sam wonders if Joe has realized that he had forgotten something in preparation for his trip

Patience is a virtue. Or at least it's a learned skill in our business. End users don't always know when to "wait it out" and let a process complete.

-Joe was having an issue importing contacts for a client and fields that were not supported in Exchange. Another issue was making a contact listed by company instead of First Name/Last Name.

We welcome our VIP Patreon Sponsors:

Topics:

-Joe made it to Portland, Oregon and had the chance to hang out with friend of the show Kevin Ginger. Sam is in Wakesha, WI

-As the show start time approaches, Sam runs into issues on his own computer. Joe wonders if it’s /var/folders. Why is this directory such a mystery to us?

-An iMac Pro comes to Joe’s workbench with strange problems with the Share menu. One method of troubleshooting was using the Recovery Partition and he ran into Secure Boot features:https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208330

After attempting Apple Configurator 2 and not having success, Joe’s team contacted Apple. The suggestion was made for a full unit replacement.

*Joe can see the future about future Mac computers with the T2 chip as this show was recorded prior to the recent 2018 MacBook Pro announcements-Joe & Sam go down memory lane about the various models and how troubleshooting has changed

-Does Joe miss Touch ID on his MacBook Pro? Yes however he still had “Unlock with Apple Watch”. That is, until his Apple Watch decided to self destruct.

This week we are proud to be sponsored by FLEXdesk, an offering from our friends at Rooted Consulting. FLEXdesk - Help Desk support that grows with you

Topics:

-Joe has some questions about content caching and working with multiple WAN IP addresses. Sam makes an attempt at discussing while on the road.

-Sam encounters an issue when attempting to download a full macOS High Sierra installer. With content caching enabled on another computer, the App Store only downloaded a small 15 MB file. Only when turning content caching off would it download the full installer.

-Jerry is in the midst of a remodel in his home office so he talks about the struggles of being uprooted and moving equipment

-He recommends theTP-Link PowerLine Adapters as a good alternative to ethernet when that’s not possible:https://amzn.to/2N6vX6P

-After Jerry was talking about how an Apple TV reset worked to correct issues, Joe suggests a change in our motto to “Have you tried resetting it?”

-Quick tip from Jerry about a client that took their Mac into the Apple Store and were told that it needed a new logic board. He saves the day by unplugging the battery and the client is ecstatic that it turned on again.

-A reminder from Jerry to have your clients put reviews on Google or Yelp

-Joe has some Safari gripes to talk about. At times, when clicking on a link in Apple Mail, it will open a new tab in one of his minimized windows in the Dock. Jerry wonders if it’s more of a peeve than a gripe.

-Another annoyance is making exceptions to invalid certificates in https sites. He also noticed that the password dialogue box is for the current logged in user’s credentials. Sam thinks this is because it is placing an exception in the user’s keychain. Jerry wonders if it’s a router’s config page with an expired certificate. An older version of Firefox is the workaround.

-Joe attempts to hold Sam to his keychain thought and he cannot verify as he is careening down the highway at high speeds

-A connection to John Gruber and Daring Fireball - he declares the Menu Bar as the Mac’s greatest invention. Joe says Command+Tab is the greatest keyboard invention. Sam wonders what came first, Command+Tab or Windows key+Tab?

-Sam has been working closely with a client to develop a proof of concept to roll out iPad Pro devices and finds challenges with the Microsoft Office products for iOS

-He has also had a very positive experience working with the business team and their measured approach when selling products to the customer

-Joe finds it funny that one of Sam’s solutions is to use Web Clips, an idea that Steve Jobs himself described as a “sweet solution” 11 years ago, a fact that John Gruber periodically jokes about

-In our “I should have known this” segment, Joe realizes while attempting to do a backup that he cannot backup using Time Machine to an APFS volume. He also finds that he cannot encrypt a Time Machine destination after completing an initial backup.

-Jerry has some follow up from the 10,000 Songs on Four Wheels Show and using the “Fuzzy Slipper Method”, coined by Jerry himself. He talks about needing WAN access when setting up a network for a customer in your office.

-Joe has a straight WAN port in his work bench area so he can truly setup a network for clients using unfiltered access

-Joe calls back to Dan Benjamin & Merlin Mann and how he used to listen to them constantly

-We had the pleasure of sitting in on Jeff Porten’s presentation at ACEs 2018 and he has a new book out in the Take Control Series. The book is called “Take Control of Your Productivity” https://www.takecontrolbooks.com/productivity

Command-Control-Power

Cmd-Ctrl-pwr is a weekly podcast hosted by three certified members of the Apple Consultants Network (ACN), drawing from nearly half a century of combined experience operating technology consulting practices.

Command-Control-Power is a weekly podcast hosted by three certified members of the Apple Consultants Network (ACN), drawing from nearly half a century of combined experience operating technology consulting practices.